


If I couldn't stand you, would I do this?

by Hotcisawesome



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, Jaime is emotional, M/M, Nightmares, there's fluff too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 16:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11360808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotcisawesome/pseuds/Hotcisawesome
Summary: With the apocalyptic prophesy revelation and now the nightmares, Jaime was worried that Bart was only his friend to keep an eye on him. Bart corrected him.





	If I couldn't stand you, would I do this?

**Author's Note:**

> First fic on this website, just recently got into Young Justice and fell in love with these two. Um, I hope you enjoy reading it!

Jaime had been fighting for what seemed like hours, but he felt alive because he was winning this fight. As drones swarmed him, trying to take him down, he fought back even harder. Soon the tide of the battle switched, the drones now smashed and strewn around the rubble as Blue Beetle blasted, kicked, and sliced his way to the elusive villain, the one he wanted to destroy. The man had tried to run, but with a carefully aimed shot, Jaime stapled him against the wall.

With all of the drones now taken care of, Jaime approached the man, ripping the staple out of the wall. A punch to the gut and a swipe across the face brought the man to his knees.

"Look at me, esé." Jaime said, anger roiling in his veins, his scythe blades extending. 

"I said look!" And he emphasized this with a slash to the man's torso, tearing up the fabric and leaving a line of red to well up from underneath.

Finally, the figure looked up. Jaime blood went cold because no, it couldn't be. In front of him was Impusle, Bart, his friend. Bart coughed. "Heyyy... Her-man-o" with a strained voice and an even more strained smile.

Jaime almost fell over in shock. This was all wrong, where was... what was his name, the villain! There was a villain! Wasn't there? And all those drones...

He looked around. What once were faceless robots were now the bodies of his friends, beaten and bloody. All because of him.

And then, his blaster was charging on it's own. "No! No! He's my friend!" Jaime tried to pull it away from Bart's face but it wouldn't budge. Jaime couldn't look away. Bart's unsure smile dropping, fear in his eyes. Fear caused by him.

With a flash of blue light, Jaime's eyes shut of their own accord.

When he opened them again, it was to darkness. He tried to move but his body was being trapped. As Jaime thrashed around, Khaji Da's voice was there but he couldn't understand what was going on. He was being constricted, the air stifling him. The armor was wrapping around him and his body was forced still. "Noooo!" He cried out, trying not to shed tears, he didn't want to lose control.

[Jaime Reyes, you must calm down. Your heart beat is extremely elevated and your breathing is irratic. I have employed the armor to keep you still.]

With the vision provided by the armor, Jaime took a real look around. As his breathing became more controlled and his mind more focused, Jaime could see what the situation really was. They were in his room, his bed to be exact.

At that moment, relief flooded through him. His friends were safe, he hadn't killed Bart. Yet there was also embarrassment since he had been so caught up in his nightmare that now Khaji Da was having to untangle him from his bedsheets.

"Um... yeah thanks but I'm better now. I can do it..." Jaime said.

After a few seconds of deliberation, Khaji Da acquiesced that he was calmed down enough and the armor retracted. Jaime fixed the rest of the sheets and then curled up, trying not to cry.

This wasn't the first time he'd had nightmares about the apocalypse that he had caused. But this one was so vivid. And in this one, he wasn't trapped in his mind, forced to watch the slaughter. No, this time he had been the one doing the slaughter.

He didn't want that future to ever happen, he could see why Bart had come back. The real question was why Bart hadn't just put a bullet in him the second he arrived.

Instead, Bart had befriended him. They hung out and talked, even outside of league time. Although now that he knew the truth, it was probably all just reconnaissance, to figure out how evil he was or something. As soon as this whole Reach thing was over, Bart wouldn't want a thing to do with him. It was a sad truth, but a truth none the less.

After a few more minutes of thinking along the same depressing lines, Jaime slowly became more tired and eventually fell into an uneasy but thankfully dreamless sleep.

When Jaime woke up the next day, he was feeling slightly better. He did recall his nightmare but tried not to dwell on it, same as all the others.

As the day went on, his mood improved. With his family out of the house for various reasons, he could just laze around in his pajama pants and play video games without being called perezoso every thirty minutes. Hey, he saved lives multiple times a week, he deserved to be lazy some days. 

Eventually Jaime settled on the couch to watch something that wasn't whatever annoying show Milagro always seemed to have playing. As he flipped through channels, there was a knock on his door.

[Based on heat readings, it is the Impulse.] Khaji informed him. 

Happiness swelled in Jaime's chest, it was always nice to hang out with Bart. Jaime got up to let him in. As soon as the door opened, Bart sped in. Jaime closed the door and turned around, shaking his head slightly at the enthusiasm of his friend.

"Hey, what's up esé?" He asked with a smile.

[He could be looking for tactical information to aid in your demise. I still believe it is wise to kill the Impulse.] Khaji Da suggested. Not this again. Even worse, it only served to remind him of his dream last night, the world where he had killed Bart.

"Oh nothing much, just wanted to see my friend, hey have any food?" Bart said, interrupting Jaime's quickly souring thoughts.

"Yeah Bart, I have food."

Coming back from the kitchen laden with popcorn and chips, they sat down to watch whatever show Jaime had left the television on. Something to do with competing chefs.

While Bart had soon become absorbed with yelling at the cooks to start plating the food because "come on, you have 14 seconds left get away from the stove!" Jaime just thought of why Bart had come. 

It's not that he didn't want him here, frankly the feeling he got whenever Bart showed up unannounced was bordering much closer to a crush than he was comfortable with. Obviously Impulse was just here to stop his future from getting "moded" and yet that conflicted with the fact that Bart was pressed again his side on his couch, watching Chopped and eating his Chicken Whizees.

[I believe the saying is 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer']

"Not helping Khaji," Jaime muttered.

Unfortunately Bart had heard. Now that the commercials were playing, Bart could focus on Jaime and what he saw made him narrow his eyes.

"Hey, her-ma-no, something up, you look kinda upset. What, you don't like my company?" Bart said with a teasing smile, but in his eyes Jaime could see worry.

That caused him to give a short, derisive laugh. Yeah, as if he was the one suffering from this friendship. "No Bart, you're great."

"Well that's good but I'm not letting you off that easy Blue, you're making me worry. Is everything alright, something you want to talk about?" And God, Bart just looked so intense, looking as if he truly cared if Jaime was upset and that he wanted to make him feel better.

Well fine, if Bart wanted to know what's up.

"Look, it's just that you don't have to keep pretending that I'm your friend! You're here because in the future I killed people, I hurt you. I'm a threat and you need to watch over me but toying at my emotions isn't okay. I can't stand the thought that you're here just because you want to go the extra mile to keep an eye on me."

"Yo, Jaime you got it all wrong" Bart started to say, but Jaime wasn't done yet.

"Oh is that so? Then why are you here in my house? How can you stand to look at me, how can you stand to touch me!" Jaime's voice cracked with the emotion and pent up self-hatred. He pushed himself away from Bart and tried to get off the couch.

Obviously Bart was too fast and grabbed his arms to keep him in place.

"No, no let me go!" Jaime struggled, tears now streaking down his cheeks. But Bart held on and Jaime eventually stopped. When Bart tentatively let go, Jaime immediately turned away and curled himself up, squeezing his eyes shut in an effort to stop crying. 

"Hey, hey, Jaime. It's not all bad like you said. Sure you, uh, you're the main reason I came back. In my time you were... Not crash... And when I came to this time I had definitely planned to watch you carefully, I was prepared to stop you if I needed..."

Jaime curled up further. This was it, this was when Impulse was going to leave, he was just letting him down easy.

"But instead. Well I got to know you. You were kind and treated me like a person and let me come over to your house. When I first saw you in the armor I was terrified, but you were still you. And as time passed, I realized that my mission had changed. Instead of wanting to stop you, I realized I wanted to save you."

By this point in Bart's speech, starting off unsure but continuing to get more passionate, Jaime's tears had stopped flowing. With a shaky breath to calm himself, Jaime straightened up and turned back to face Bart.

"But esé, I've probably hurt you so much in that future. I saw you without a shirt that one time, I know you have scars... And I'm probably the one that caused them. You don't want to be friends with someone who did that to you."

"Jaime. That. Wasn't. You." Bart said angrily, hands grabbing Jaime and giving him a little shake.

"I know the real you now and you're sweet and funny and you're a hero. You want to do the right thing."

Now Bart was um, really close to his face. And suddenly he looked shy.

"Plus, if I couldn't stand you, would I do this?"

And now, Bart's lips were on his. Jaime froze. No, this wasn't at all what he expected, he didn't deserve this on top of Bart's friendship.

But wait, Bart was pulling away. Jaime realized during his little mental freak out that he hadn't kissed back and he definitely didn't want Bart to think he didn't feel the same way because he most certainly did.

Jaime lunged to follow Bart's lips and when they reconnected, he also wrapped his arms around the smaller boy's frame. They kissed, lips moving against each other tentatively. He had kissed one other person before so he wasn't completely inexperienced, but she wasn't his best friend, she wasn't someone who meant this much to him.

When they pulled apart finally, Jaime was still unclear of the exact situation. What did the kiss they had just shared mean?

"Wow I've been wanting to do that for a while." Bart said, awkwardly smiling and rubbing the back of his neck.

"Really?" Jaime asked, still in a daze. "So does this mean you'd like to do it again? Like, dating?"

"I'd love it!" Bart said, now smiling widely. 

"What if I, you know, go evil..." He didn't want to bring it up, but it had been hanging over his head since Bart told him the truth.

"Look Jaime, I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know that whatever happens with the Reach and everything else, we're going to get through it together... Right?"

Jaime looked at Bart incredulously. He was too good to be true. Sure this wasn't the end to all his worries, but it was a start.

"You're right. Together." Jaime said with a smile as he drew Bart close for another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
